Jacqui Jameshttps://www.jacquijames.com.au
The Thought Leaders Business ManagerTue, 14 Aug 2018 04:33:14 +0000en-AUhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.85 Tips For Getting Your Book Kindle Readyhttps://www.jacquijames.com.au/book-kindle-ready/
Tue, 12 Jun 2018 07:39:06 +0000https://www.jacquijames.com.au/?p=10425How exciting it is when you type those final words to your much-loved book project. You’ve probably spent months writing your first business book and finally reached the point where you ready to self-publish and put your book on Kindle. So how many hours do you think you’ve already spent writing your book, 40, 60, [Read More]

]]>How exciting it is when you type those final words to your much-loved book project. You’ve probably spent months writing your first business book and finally reached the point where you ready to self-publish and put your book on Kindle. So how many hours do you think you’ve already spent writing your book, 40, 60, 100? When you figure in your hourly rate, you’ll get an almighty shock when you realise how much your book project has cost you so far.

Let’s do a few sums, for example, your consulting rate is $100 per hour, and you’ve spent 60 hours over the past few months working on your next big thing.

That equates to $6,000 in hours of your time spent so far.

It’s a bit of a shock isn’t it when you look at it like that. You’re in business, you charge a premium to your clients for their expertise, and while you’ve written your book, that’s $6,000 you’ve missed out on in revenue to your bottom line. It’s a gamble you’re prepared to take because you are expecting there will be a massive market for your book once finished and your ROI on all this time invested will be through the roof. Nice thought; highly unlikely!!

5 Tips For Getting Your Book Kindle Ready

Continuing with the math, that’s 6k you need to ensure you recoup back in book sales, and you certainly won’t get that back if your Kindle book isn’t made for your target market. One of the biggest tips for getting your book Kindle ready is:

Know who your target market is and what makes them purchase.

You need to consider the following five points as part of your project layout.

What colours resonate with them

What graphics style works for them

What terminology clicks with them

What problem will your book solve

What makes them click the buy button

Now, finding out this information can take you, at $100 per hour another 40 hours of research. So far now, you’ve spent a total of $10,000 of your time on your book project, that you need to recoup in sales for you to break even to this point. That’s a huge hit to your bottom line and you still don’t have anything tangible to look at in the way of your book.

What makes me the expert? After project managing and publishing 38 books for clients on Amazon, I know what I’m talking about. The brief was to get the client’s books on Amazon as cost-effectively as possible. They had the raw material, an unformatted manuscript, they handed it over, the process was created and within 8 weeks, 38 books were on Amazon.

It’s always tempting to think; you can do this yourself, I’ll just knock it over in a few days and then it’s out of the way. But you and I both know it never works like this, thousands of dollars later and hundreds of hours of your time are wasted while you focus on something you don’t need to know how to do.

The solution is to have us help you by project managing the entire process. All we need from you is the manuscript. Find out how to save yourself thousands of dollars and hundreds of hour; get your copy of the Perfect 5 Step Process to publishing on Kindle and start working smarter.

]]>5 Things You Can Do To Successfully Publish To Kindlehttps://www.jacquijames.com.au/successfully-publish-kindle/
https://www.jacquijames.com.au/successfully-publish-kindle/#respondSun, 03 Jun 2018 22:00:07 +0000http://www.jacquijames.com.au/?p=8619We all want to be known for something, the drive we feel to leave our mark on the world can be done in many ways and one of the most popular is to write a book. Today, the quickest and easiest way to get your book on Amazon is to self-publish. Granted there are many [Read More]

]]>We all want to be known for something, the drive we feel to leave our mark on the world can be done in many ways and one of the most popular is to write a book. Today, the quickest and easiest way to get your book on Amazon is to self-publish. Granted there are many books and blogs that will tell you how to do it, but at JMJ – EA for a Day, we guarantee to love your book as much as you do.

We have helped clients publish more than 38 books on Kindle, so we know what we’re talking about, and as a result of managing the processes for these 38 books, we have produced the Perfect 5 Step Process to help you get published online.

It is so easy to get discouraged when you start looking into getting your book online. Amazon is a beast, it’s huge, where do you even begin? So you start spending hours of time you don’t have reading, researching, making lists and crossing stuff off the list you’ve just created because you read somewhere you didn’t need to do that step after all. If you’re bent on going down this road yourself, you will need to know:

The best format to use

How to lay out your book

What pages go in what order

What is the best font for readability

Should you use bullet points; indents

How to lay out paragraphs.

That’s just it, you don’t need to know it, but we do.

How To Get Your Book On Amazon

There are 5 individual steps that we take to ensure your book looks its absolute best when published on Amazon.

Proof and Edit – After your book has been written, it needs to be proofed and edited. Reading through it yourself, unless you’re an editor won’t do.

Layout – There is a whole design process to laying out your book and we ensure you have the three book components, front, middle and back the way they’re meant to be to maximise your books impact on a Kindle reader.

Format and Review – Kindle itself has very specific requests you need to include when formatting your book. They want you to look your absolute best on the Amazon website.

Design – The design of your cover and back cover page will depend on the type of book you are publishing – your objective, your niche and your target market.

Publish -Publishing your book has many steps involved that can take some time to complete. You need to ask yourself, how much do you charge your clients an hour? Okay, you worked it out, now x by 100 hours. At $100 per hour, it’s going to cost you $10k worth of your time to do everything that needs to be done. Can you afford to do that? I didn’t think so, it doesn’t make good business sense, does it.

You will also need to create an Author page, your bio, links to your RSS feed, include photos. You want to make sure people can read all about you and buy your book.

There are three things that you need to do.

Write your book

Create a Kindle Account

Pass the project to JMJ – EA for a Day

Realising your dream of getting your book online and heading for the best seller list is now much easier than you thought. To find out more about the 5 Step Process, click here.

*This post was updated on the 1 June 2018 and published on the 20 March 2017

]]>https://www.jacquijames.com.au/successfully-publish-kindle/feed/0The Most Powerful Tool You Have As A Virtual Assistanthttps://www.jacquijames.com.au/tool-virtual-assistant/
https://www.jacquijames.com.au/tool-virtual-assistant/#respondMon, 26 Mar 2018 10:05:06 +0000https://www.jacquijames.com.au/?p=10274Of all the resources and tools we have available to us as virtual assistants, there is ONLY one tool that without, it’s a business fail because this is the most powerful tool you have as a virtual assistant. Throughout my career in corporate and then running my business, I have had the privilege of being [Read More]

]]>Of all the resources and tools we have available to us as virtual assistants, there is ONLY one tool that without, it’s a business fail because this is the most powerful tool you have as a virtual assistant.

Throughout my career in corporate and then running my business, I have had the privilege of being across many private and personal projects. This means, that my number one tool has to be beyond reproach when it comes to dealing with and accessing both private and personal information. So who would have realised when I first started JMJ – EA for a Day that something I have always held dear, would become one of the single most important reasons my clients are my clients.

No matter how good you are at doing what you do, without INTEGRITY, you have nothing. TRUST is absolutely everything between you and your clients. Having integrity isn’t just about being honest, it’s about demonstrating you’re a good person in a variety of ways.

Although I have a website, and queries come through regularly. I find that the majority of my clients past and present come from referrals. Word of mouth is free, there is no cost associated with it. For me, my influx of clients each year begins in mid to late January. It begins with emailed introductions and requests for help from potential clients. My clients are my biggest fans. Not every client will come on board, and there is a reason for that, you are not what they are looking for or they are not what you are looking for. It is perfectly okay to pick and choose who you want to work with, after all, they will pick and choose too.

The VA Project has limited spaces available for our 8-week eCoaching program. To find out how you can help your clients be known for known something click here to enrol.

]]>https://www.jacquijames.com.au/tool-virtual-assistant/feed/0What Makes Virtual Assistants Successful?https://www.jacquijames.com.au/successful-virtual-assistants/
https://www.jacquijames.com.au/successful-virtual-assistants/#respondTue, 20 Mar 2018 21:00:19 +0000https://www.jacquijames.com.au/?p=10262I got to thinking about what it is that makes Virtual Assistants successful and what doesn’t. In my time coaching virtual assistants I’ve found some reoccurring themes for the downward spiral, and pretty much, if you’re not getting anywhere after being in business 12 months, you need to take a good hard look at one [Read More]

I got to thinking about what it is that makes Virtual Assistants successful and what doesn’t. In my time coaching virtual assistants I’ve found some reoccurring themes for the downward spiral, and pretty much, if you’re not getting anywhere after being in business 12 months, you need to take a good hard look at one or all of the following 8 points.

Unsuccessful Virtual Assistants

1. They don’t research.
2. They have no idea who their market is.
3. They avoid networking.
4. They take shortcuts.
5. They are not prepared financially.
6. They have an employee mindset.
7. They don’t invest in their tools of trade.
8. They don’t invest in themselves.

Do you feel like you are at the point of no return? Well, there is always a solution, you just need to find what is going to work for you.

Break out your fav pens and notebook and go over the following 8 solutions and consider, what are you going to do to ‘set yourself up for the win, how will you create a business structure that will support you, how much money do you need to do what you need to do and so on?

Successful Virtual Assistants

1. Set yourself up for the win.
2. Create a business structure that will support you.
3. Be money savvy.
4. Invest in the tools of your trade.
5. Specialise in something be the SME
6. Design a brand that will get you noticed.
7. Build a website that is geared to your target market.
8. Know your worth.

Running a business doesn’t need to make you feel washed out, devalued and second-guessing yourself. My number one rule is me first. I have to be because if I don’t take care of my business, where am I leaving my clients?

So, where are you leaving yours? What are you going to do to give your business the boost it needs?

I’ve been helping Virtual Assistants build businesses that can change their life, book a discovery call to find out how you can change yours. Grab a copy of the Book of Lists, it’s the ultimate Virtual Assistant resource. Over 13 checklists for all areas of your business. Find out what it is, you’re not doing.

]]>https://www.jacquijames.com.au/successful-virtual-assistants/feed/0Learn From Failure – My 2 Important Lessonshttps://www.jacquijames.com.au/learn-failure/
https://www.jacquijames.com.au/learn-failure/#respondSun, 21 Jan 2018 21:00:54 +0000https://www.jacquijames.com.au/?p=9527We all know that failure is inevitable, we never intentionally set ourselves up for it, but one way or the other, it happens from time to time, we fail at things. It took me many years to come to grips with failure and now, I’m perfectly fine with it. It teaches me so much; Sometimes, [Read More]

]]>We all know that failure is inevitable, we never intentionally set ourselves up for it, but one way or the other, it happens from time to time, we fail at things. It took me many years to come to grips with failure and now, I’m perfectly fine with it. It teaches me so much; Sometimes, things just don’t work out like I want them to, that’s okay, there is always something to learn.

Growing up, failure was a dirty word, I would move hell and high water to make sure I didn’t fail. Peer pressure was immense, family pressure to do well at school also. I paid the price of a country girl growing up in a small town. Where everybody knew everybody and the bush telegraph would reach my parents before I could. So whether I failed in class, failed at sport, failed elastics at recess, I was always conscious that everyone was watching me, waiting for me to slip up again. The truth is, no one was, but my inner self-talk was telling me otherwise.

You’re not good enough.

You’re an idiot, why did you attempt that?

What makes you think you can be an achiever?

You’re a nobody.

What gives you the right to have a go?

Can you see where I’m going with these thoughts? A lot of them stem from my childhood, the schoolyard and even the classroom. We learn failure is bad from the moment we begin to understand, if it wasn’t coming from the other kids, it was the teachers, and at home, the pressure was on too. These things shape you, how you think and in turn, your self-esteem.

My 2 Important Lessons I Learnt From Failure

It wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s, I realised two very important facts. I had grown up, got married and had children win, win, win.

Failure didn’t kill me, it shaped my life. It made me more determined to succeed, and I did and have.

I learnt from the failure and didn’t do it again. I figure, if you repeat the failure, you deserve to fail so that wasn’t going to happen.

I’ve realised that failure is a very necessary part of life, it shapes and defines us into who we are today. I now have over half a century of failures notched on my belt and when I look back on them, I can see why and importantly how they were failures. I think realising the how is just as important as knowing the why. There are still times when self-doubt and insecurities pop into view and I have to work hard to push them out.

So next time you’re worried about failing or not giving something ago because there is the possibility it will fail; they are perfectly normal thoughts. Don’t let them stop you taking that step because it could be that step that changes your life. If you want to find out how you can take build an amazing Virtual Assistant biz, then click here to find out more.

]]>https://www.jacquijames.com.au/learn-failure/feed/0Bad Clients – What You Can Learnhttps://www.jacquijames.com.au/bad-clients/
https://www.jacquijames.com.au/bad-clients/#respondSun, 14 Jan 2018 21:00:35 +0000https://www.jacquijames.com.au/?p=9523For some of us, bad clients have been a part of our business, whether we knew it before we started working with them, or whether it happened later on. I think, working with bad clients is an important part of a Virtual Assistants business. They teach us what it is we don’t need, and this [Read More]

]]>For some of us, bad clients have been a part of our business, whether we knew it before we started working with them, or whether it happened later on. I think, working with bad clients is an important part of a Virtual Assistants business. They teach us what it is we don’t need, and this is one lesson we need to learn the hard way if our business is to grow.

I’ve had my fair share [of bad clients] over the years, on the outside they appear ‘normal’ but on the exterior lies a micro-managing, narcissistic, freeloading, mind-sapping client. This post will show you how you can identify them; what clients you need to fire and those that you can still work with, with a little know how because you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Now, I’m not a psychologist, nor have I ever had any training in this area, but I do know what is acceptable behaviour and what isn’t, and the difference between right and wrong. But for some clients, nothing else exists except reaching that financial goal regardless of the cost and for many, they won’t get there because a client also needs to be a great leader. According to Jeff Black, communications expert and founder of the Black Sheep development company, there are 6 traits that most influential leaders have.

A client should never make you feel worthless, not in control, powerless, a subordinate, always have you second-guessing yourself. If you feel any of this with any of your clients, then they are a bad client. In this situation, I’ve fired clients because I know their opinion of me and my abilities are not mine nor of the many happy clients I have. They were bullies, and it just came down to me not accepting to be bullied.

Common traits of a bad client

The narcissist – loves a selfie and continuously on social media, as they enjoy the pat on the back that builds their self-esteem. It’s all about them, and there is no empathy for anyone, they are manipulative and demanding.

The micromanager – they are continually checking in with you because they don’t have the faith you will do the job as good as they can. The micromanager has to be in control and know what you’re doing all the time, so heaps of emails, calls, messages, meetings. They push all the right buttons to make you think you’re inadequate.

They know it all – no matter how good your idea/ thought/strategy is, it’s never good enough. This type of client will ask your opinion but never implement it.

Some clients won’t invest in themselves – they don’t want to spend any money putting in place things as important as a website; they don’t need one; they have LinkedIn, and they wonder why they don’t have people beating down their door.

Other clients won’t invest in you – They look for a bargain basement price, or freebies, often disguised as “send me a sample” of… but they have something specific they want the sample of.

The negotiator – always wanting to know but why, can you do it like this, why does it take so long, what if we do it this way.

The pretender – they think they are already at the top of their game, but they already possess all these other bullet points, so we know already, don’t we?

The prove it – you have to justify how long you spent doing a task or why it was done a particular way.

Believe it or not, you can manage these client types if you have a cast-iron constitution. Seriously, I think a lot of it comes down to knowing how to handle the different personality traits, and once you know how to do that, half the battle is won.

Bad clients, you need to fire

The micromanager – there is only one boss in my business, and that is me

They know it all – if they can do my job better than me then knock your socks off

The negotiator – it’s tiring work, and I won’t do its

They won’t invest in you – they already think you’re not worth it

They won’t invest in themselves – they are penny pinchers and will ultimately get nowhere

These types of bad clients will drain you of time and resources and have you second guessing everything you do. I got rid of mine, regardless of what they paid, the stress wasn’t worth it.

The bad clients you can work with

This next group, while painful, are still workable, and you can guide them towards being great clients. It takes time, but it can be done with a little bit of work.

The prove it – I’m happy to work by the hour (when needed), project or retainer and submit a timesheet to relevant clients each month. It’s crucial to any business owner to know where their money is going. After all, you want to see what you’re spending your money on, wouldn’t you?

The pretender – It’s not against the law to pretend you’re better than you are. It’s somewhat typical actually for a lot of people. Although I don’t see the benefit. Generally, a pretender also has narcissistic tendencies which aren’t a crime either, just annoying to those of us who have to deal with them.

The narcissist – They want the work you do to make them look good, and if they get comments back saying XX was great, then that’s all they need for you to make them look good and grateful. It’s not hard, you just need to be the very best you can be, and that’s all there is to it.

So why do I have the Prove it, The Pretender and The Narcissist in the bad client category? Because they can be challenging to manage consistently on an ongoing basis, but they pay well and on time. They spend money on their images, so they spend money on what you do. They want the best, and that is you.

If you need help getting your Virtual Assistant Biz moving in the right direction, The VA Project may well be the perfect coaching answer for you. Click here to read more about how you can help your business get unstuck.